#sfc controller

I got a new toy this week that’s really cool! Check it out:

Yep, just as it looks like, a Bluetooth SNES controller (well, SFC, I like the colors). Get one on Amazon. (FD: referral link)

And it works almost great; fast connects, long battery life, super accurate buttons. But, it’s not XInput for Windows; it’s just a generic controller. 

And that kinda sorta makes sense, there’s no triggers or sticks on this controller. Why use a controller spec when it doesn’t even come close to reaching it?

The downside is that many Windows games these days JUST use XInput as their controller input. The old generic controller driver hasn’t been updated in a long time, since DX8 at least and possibly deprecated.

I know that 360ce exists but it feels like a solution that’s trying too hard; instead of trying to emulate a controller it brings it’s own xinput.dll to overwrite the existing one. Apparently with compatibility issues? Also, you have to copy it for each game and I really want to easily swap between using the real 360 controller and this one. Having to remember where my DLLs are is too much of a pain.

So what I did was write an XInput emulator for this controller:

You select the controller and then start the emulator. It will work with the USB driver to pretend a controller was installed. You also have the option of the d-pad on the controlling going to either the d-pad or LS. And the ABXY buttons can either be as labeled, or remapped to their physical XInput equivalent.

If you have this controller (or it’s SNES equivalent, and possibly the NES one too), you can download this app to make games “just work” with it:

https://github.com/ROFISH/FC30XInput/releases